Last posting on this subject we began by examining the possible different natures of being; natural, purely rational, and beings which are part natural and part rational such as human beings. I began to discuss whether our need to create emotional meaning in sexual relationships originates out of the rational side of our nature; our urge to create meaning in a chaotic universe.
Today I wish to examine the nature of love. What is love exactly? What do we mean by “falling in love?” Is it an emotion? A communion? A liberation of emotion? A sickness?
It is important to examine the nature of love fully if one is to enjoy all of its benefits. When one defines love as a feeling for example, it seems it would be easier for that individual to find love than it would be for someone who views love as a communion. Love as a feeling is very prolific, and consequently when love is defined in the supernatural sense of a communion between souls it is much more difficult to come across.
In Plato’s Symposium, Pausanias differentiates between earthly love and heavenly love. For Pausanias, love has both positive and negative effects. Because earthly love is hindered by the temporal nature of the human body it is affected by all of its material defects. Heavenly love is the love of intelligent beings while earthly love is surrounded by material conditions and concerns. For example, if one lusts after a youthful body then love becomes a very temporary thing as the youthful body inevitably ages and dies. A heavenly love emanates from the nobility of one’s character or their ‘goodness’ of being. In a modern analogy it is a knowledge based love of another soul. In this way if love is based on physical attraction then as the body changes so too will the love fluctuate, and if love is based on the love of someone’s soul then it is stable and endures. However from a philosophical standpoint Pausanias’ argument is replete with problems. He has based his view of love entirely on the separation of mind and body, a hotly debated subject. I have already stated my view on this matter; that humans are bound both by our rational side as well as our natural side, so a hardened division of mind and body is not all that useful for the purposes of our current discussion. We currently have no proof that the soul continues after the death of the body, so the prospect of heavenly love has its flaws. How can a love be eternal and enduring when both lovers are already dead?
Socrates viewed love as being a mean between two extremes, the mediator between humans and gods. Love symbolized the eternal human quest for immortality, and the highest sense of creativity – for with no reproduction there would be no creativity. In this sense all human activities are facilitated by love in Socrates view, if love did not exist humans would not reproduce. In this way Socrates views love as being a rational pursuit.
I tend to take a different view on the subject, I view love as being a wholly natural occurrence which has no part in rationality. One need only refer to Nietzsche’s view of the ascetic and the philosopher as a clue to the base nature of love. In his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche claimed that, “as long as there are philosophers on earth, and wherever there have been philosophers, there unquestionably exists a peculiar philosophers’ irritation at and rancor against sensuality.” The truth of Nietzsche’s claim is self-evident; from Aristotle to Sartre many philosophers have downplayed the importance of sensory titillation. Why does this distaste for the simple pleasures of life occur over and over again? Is it not because the philosopher has seen love as being something which rational thought is impotent to understand?
If love is truly a purely natural experience and rational thought is useless for us to make sense of our relationships, then once again we may see why it is that the casual sexual relationship may be plagued with problems. It may turn out in the end that we are biologically wired to desire what we interpret as meaningful relationships. This may be for no other reason than simply because evolution has deemed that sex with attachments is more likely to produce and raise children successfully to adulthood.
In short, can love truly be meaningful or are we once again applying made up values as we do in most other aspects of our social interactions?
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